RESONANT MINDS

What if music isn’t just something we listen to—but an experience we can use intentionally to reshape how we live, learn, and connect?

On average, Americans spend around three hours every day listening to music—no surprise, perhaps, given music’s proven ability to help reduce stress, regulate emotions, enhance well-being, and improve our relationships. And yet, despite its ubiquity, many of us take music for granted: hearing it but never really listening.

Resonant Minds is a multi-sensory journey, using QR codes so the reader can access the music of the book to hear, feel, and explore. This isn’t a book to be read once and left on a shelf—Resonant Minds is a dynamic, immersive experience that breathes life into the words on the page.

This book helps us understand how to take intentional, purposeful action through music as part of our lives and in the way we interact with others.

A daughter/father writing team, Sara Leila Sherman and Mort Sherman, Ph.D, grew up playing with music—literally! On long car rides, they’d sing Ode to Joy at the top of their lungs—except in their version, there were animal noises, made-up words, and a whole lot of laughter. That moment of uninhibited musical joy became a lifelong thread, igniting a musical, mindful spark.

We can purposefully use music to create more of those sparks to lead to mindful action. What if we…

• Breathe with Bach?
• Shook it off with Taylor Swift?
• Drew what we heard, moved to the beat, and found a groove that strengthens communities?

They encourage us to resist becoming individuals trapped in routines and reinforced by technology that feeds us only the familiar. How do we go beyond the familiar to expand beyond the songs that echo the ones we’ve always heard?

Music is woven into who we are, offering endless possibilities to move from hearing to truly listening and taking action. In our world of autoplay and algorithm-fed playlists, we rarely stop to fully engage with it.

In Resonant Minds, Sara and Mort Sherman show us how to step beyond the fourth wall of conventional music experiences and rediscover music as a mindful, interactive, and life-changing force. Blending cutting-edge research, personal stories, and practical insights, this book reveals how music can:

• Strengthen relationships and build resilient communities
• Build positive habits of mind and life
• Boost focus, creativity, and problem-solving skills

Drawing from Sara’s work as a musician and educator and Mort’s experience as a national education leader, Resonant Minds is a call to action. Music isn’t just something we consume—it’s something we live.

Featuring a foreword by Academy Award-winning actress and mindfulness advocate Goldie Hawn, as well as praise from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and neuroaesthetics expert Susan Magsamen, Resonant Minds is a must-read for parents, educators, leaders, and anyone looking to improve their lives—one note at a time.